“Ride now, ride for ruin and the world ending!!”

Our adventures in the high country of the South Island have certainly inspired us to ride forth to victory! During our trip through the region of Canterbury we stayed in two places and saw some very significant locations from the films.

Arriving in Christchurch

After a long drive (6 hours!) we arrived in the city of Christchurch, a very interesting city. As you may remember Christchurch suffered from a series of very major earthquakes in 2010 & 2011, the second of which killed 185 people and severely damaged most of the buildings in the city centre. We found out from one of tour guides that the CBD was completely closed off for 2 and 1/2 years and many of the buildings were condemned. The result is a city that is very much still in the midst of rebuilding.

In places it looks very sad, full of empty lots and abandoned buildings, but then you turn around and there is a brand new, fully functioning, modern building.

After checking into our hotel we went for a walk and quite by accident found ourselves in a square where there was a local market happening. We were drawn to one stall with handcrafted wooden items and were amazed when the stall owner explained that they were all made from salvaged wood from the condemned buildings. It’s amazing what hope and creativity can come out of a such a terrible disaster. In fact, the previously mentioned tour guide told us that the city council has been involving all the people in redesigning a city that they want to live in: a city that is eco-friendly, sustainable and more friendly to pedestrians and bikes. It’s quite inspiring.

We spent the night in a shoebox, ahem, I mean hotel room. It was the cheapest accommodation we had stayed in and we definitely got what we paid for! But it was comfortable and a bit of fun!

Edoras

The next morning we got up early and headed down to be picked up by our tour: an all-day trip out to Mt. Sunday on Mt. Potts station, better known as the City of Edoras!

After a 2 hour drive of interesting anecdotes and Tim proving how much of a nerd he was by answering the tour guide’s obscure questions the van topped a hill and there it was.

Tim was so excited by the single hill in the middle of a reasonably flat plain and reckoned it looked just like the movie. Tat thought it was a hill.

The Tour took us right up onto the hill after which we had to walk a short way to the top. Thankfully Tat’s hip survived the climb with only one minor fall on the way down.

The film crew left no evidence at all that they were ever there. They were so scrupulous that every time they had to remove a plant to make way for the production tents, they would GPS tag it, take it away to a nearby farm and pay someone to keep them alive. They then brought every one back, planted them and paid someone to check that they stayed alive!

The scenery was stunning, there were picturesque mountains in a 360 view all around.

Tim could easily imagine the houses dotted all over the hill, crowned with a golden hall.

After a while of picture taking and scene acting with replica prop swords provided by the tour guide, we headed back.

That night we went to a little bar at the suggestion of the tour guide. It was called Astro Lounge and it was basically a beer garden behind another bistro that had been done up in a Sci-fi theme, with props and posters all around and even menu items named after sci-fi movies. Tim had the Millennium falcon burger. Needless to say, we loved it.

Twizel

The next day we had some time to kill before driving to our next location so we used good old Google and found an escape room venue nearby that was built in shipping crates. So we decided to give it a go. The one we did was time travel theme and we had an hour to find the four time keys and save the world. We did it with 11 seconds to spare!

After that we traveled four hours to the quaint little town of Twizel.

Our accomodation here was probably one of our favourites. It was only a little trailer but it had been built in the shape of Apollo 11. It also had a big window in the roof which allowed us to lie in bed and look up at the stars.

It was situated on Pukaki airport, a small country airfield, and just sat next to the owners live in hanger where he lived with his plane.

Lake Town and Pelennor Fields

Our only engagement in Twizel was a double barrelled tour to see a Hobbit location and a Lord of the Rings location.

Upon arrive at our pickup point we discovered that we were the only ones going on the tour and proceeded to have a lovely day with our very friendly and accomodating local tour guide.

She first took us to the lake where they filmed the scene from The Battle of the Five armies where the refugees of Lake Town wash ashore after Smaug has destroyed the town. Our tour guide was actually involved as an extra in filming this scene so she had some amazing stories to share with us.

She also had some great props and we delighted in dressing up as Tauriel and Kili and staging some ‘romantic’ scenes.

After a nice cafe lunch we headed out to the main attraction: a big empty field just out of Twizel. The field was used for some of the biggest scenes in terms of extras and logistics in the whole of the Lord of the Rings and that of course was all the scenes of Pelennor Fields in Return of the King.

The battle itself used 1000 extras, including 250 horses and their riders. We also found out they have since filmed a number of other films here, including, most recently, Disney’s upcoming live-action Mulan remake. Some of the set for Mulan had been stored in the hanger down the road from where we stayed!

Using screenshots the tour guide provided, a lot of the background scenery was very recognisable. We also got to go up to the very hill where King Theoden delivers his rousing speech before the charge of the Rohirrim in one the most emotional and epic scenes in all the films. We even recreated the charge of the Rohirrim by driving 60km/h in the tour guide’s van down the film road.

This tour will definitely stand out as one of the highlights of our trip.

After the tour we set out immediately for Queenstown and the final stop of our Adventure!